I Got a Little Something at the Ithacan Awards Banquet...

Just in case you can't read that, it says "The Ithacan Sports Section hereby recognizes Abby Paulson as Best New Writer for the Fall 2008 semester."

OH MY GOD YAYYYYYY

It's so awesome to feel like all the games in the rain, hours spent in front of the computer, and all the weekend stress were TOTALLY WORTH IT.

What a great Christmas present.

There's also four inches of snow covering the ground right now, and it's still coming down like crazy. People are playing football in the quads, trying to sled down hills in the dark. To ward off some more finals stress, dormmates Tori and Sara bought tons of bacon and eggs and invited everyone down for breakfast. At 8 o' clock at night. 

I love it here.

That's not to say I like finals. 

But this totally makes it bearable, to say the least. 

It's Just About Finals Time

So I've got a lot of papers to write. 

Which I don't really feel like doing. At all. But I will. 

Starting Friday, for the WHOLE WEEK every dorm has 23 hour quiet hours. That's right. We can only be loud but "non-disruptive" for an hour a day. From 6 p.m to 7 p.m. If we mess up once, we get written up. 

So, essentially, Friday, the dorms become prisons. And everyone is serving a week sentence for, well, finals. 

Argh. I can hardly wait to come home to fires and couches and showers with water pressure. As much as I love Ithaca, finals makes being here college minus the fun. 

Which is obviously no fun at all...and makes me really need chocolate and caffeine in various forms. 

Wish me luck! All the stress should be gone by Wednesday night!

The Griddo Crew

A pic of us being as awesome as we truly are! I'll write more later, but work is calling. 

I Froze Yesterday and Today

Yesterday, as I walked through -2 degree windchill down to Park Studio B for the millionth time, I considered the possibility of purchasing a hat. You know, one that keeps your ears from falling off. 

I spent just about a year of my life (at least it felt that way) working the teleprompter yesterday, because I worked it on the Inquirer for the first time, and then ran it during our one-hour Griddo special last night. Total time spent: four hours. Gaahhhhh

If you didn't catch the amazingness that was our one hour special, full season recap yesterday, it re-airs on ictv.org on Thursday from 9-10 again. It even included an AMAZING PTI-inspired countdown and we brought in these awesome guys from commentary and Sports Final and they did some really neat, kind of funny analysis of the whole season. It was great. Our graphic was totally wicked. It felt like I was working for ESPN. 

It is cold outside, but it did snow last night. I love the way it looks, but it's thirteen degrees outside. It's bad when you announce the high temperature for the day and someone asks, "Fahrenheit or celsius?" 

Whatever. It's my last week of classes! I'll make it. 

Happy Birthday Mom!

It's my Mom's birthday, and I would just like to say thank you:

You're such a great mom. You taught (and am teaching) me to be a strong woman that can do anything she sets her mind to.

Even though I still lose all my hair ties, you made the transition from high school to college easy, teaching me everything I needed to know. The only problem? I miss you so much!

Everyone is totally obsessed with the candy wreath you made. As am I. Thanks so much!

Thank you for supporting me in anything I do, whether it's absorbing myself in football, becoming a journalist or swimming on the swim team. You're always there to cheer, or make all my friends love you by showing up with food (Continental pizza at Homecoming Decorations? You're legendary!)  and lots and lots of love. 

Have an amazing day! You deserve it. I can't wait to see you in less than two weeks! 

I love you!

Oh, and Dad, I love you tons too. 

Friday!

So I'm just estimating, but I'm pretty sure that 60% of my blogs are about Friday. Whether it's Friday, or I want it to be. And here it is again.  

I'm cleaning my room, which had (has) become a disaster area. I'm taking a small break, gaining a little perspective. Yesterday, because it was a Thursday, was long.  It ended with our last Sports Section meeting of the year. As usual, it was extremely entertaining. Next week's issue is our last of the semester, and since I don't have an assignment, I can take a break! Well...I've actually got to deal with my intro to journalism assignment instead. Ugh. But at least I won't have to handle both at once. 

Next Thursday is the Ithacan semester-end banquet. Everyone is supposed to dress "business casual." I'm not exactly sure what that means. I may resort to getting the girls in my dorm to pick my outfit for me. We are, essentially, an awesome sorority.  I don't know how it worked out so perfectly, but everyone that lives here is pretty awesome and fun. 

I also have a confession: I'm all the way in New York, and I am still listening to WashFM Christmas Music (online, of course). It's a hard habit to break. 

I love it. I even like listening to the traffic report, thinking about all the angry Washingtonians on the packed Beltway. 

That's what Christmas is all about.

Griddo Ends

I just got an e-mail from my Griddo producers, about our last episode of the year. Because it's the last episode, we're going out with a bang, doing an hour-long season extravaganza. So, if you're free from 9:00-10:00 p.m Sunday, tune in on ictv.org. It streams right on the front page live.  

Reading the e-mail made me very, very sad. Saying goodbye to Griddo for the year pretty much means saying goodbye to the seniors on the crew, and they've helped me so much and are so much fun. I can't imagine Sundays without them, because of how much I've learned. We're taking a full-crew picture afterwards, and I hope I'll get a copy. 

Of course, in true Gridiron Report style, Dave had to put in a little extra caution and advice to the crew:

"And guys, leave your guns behind. I know it's a football show and all, but bringing the pistol that I'm sure you all have to the show won't be necessary."  

And that's why I love the Gridiron Report.

 I didn't know I needed another reason to be sad when football seasons began to draw to a close!

So tune in Sunday!